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Will a Small Claims Court case for property damage rule out a subsequent bodily injury case involving the same car accident?
The relevant section of Hawaii Revised Statutes, Chapter 658, Section 9 (1993), reads in pertinent part, as follows:
"Vacating award. In any of the following cases, the court may make an order vacating the award, upon the application
of any party to the arbitration:
"(1) Where the award was procured by corruption, fraud, or undue means;
"(2) Where there was evident partiality or corruption in the arbitrators, or any of them;
"(3) Where the arbitrators were guilty of misconduct, in refusing to postpone the hearing, upon sufficient cause shown, or in refusing to hear evidence, pertinent and material to the controversy; or of any other misbehavior, by which the rights of any party have been prejudiced;
"(4) Where the arbitrators exceeded their powers, or so imperfectly executed them, that a mutual, final, and definite award, upon the subject matter submitted, was not made."
However, there is good reason for not according much, if any, weight, to a Small Claims Court determination. The proceedings in Small Claims Court involve extremely relaxed rules of evidence. They are unappealable. Once a Small Claims Court determination is made, it cannot be readily known whether it was based on liability, damages, or some other rationale. It could just as well have been based upon insufficient proof, unavailability of an interpreter, or who shouts the loudest or speaks with the greatest fervor, things which may count in Small Claims Court, where there are few rules and even fewer that are followed
It is clear from precedent so far, that a Small Claims Court determination of property damage, whether based on liability or damages, will not have such res judicata or collateral estoppel effect as to deny a party a day in court on his or her bodily injuries, where the Court would not have had jurisdiction to consider the bodily injury claim at the time the Small Claims Court proceedings took place on property damage. Thus it was ruled in Stevens v. Kirkpatrick, 82 Hawai'i 91, 919 P.2d 1003 (Hawai'i App. 1996). The synopsis at the start of the opinion in Stevens v. Kirkpatrick makes this glaringly clear. The ICA reversed a Circuit Court ruling in a case where:
"Motorist who was involved in automobile accident brought action against other driver involved in small claims court to recover for property damage to vehicle at time when motorist's personal injuries had not reached medical rehabilitative limit threshold under no-fault law. After threshold was met, motorist brought separate action for personal injuries against other driver and his employer, and defendants moved for dismissal. The Second Circuit Court granted motion, and motorist appealed. The Intermediate Court of Appeals, Kirimitsu, J., held that: (1) order granting motion would be reviewed as grant of summary judgment; (2) motorist did not have personal injury action at time of small claims suit as threshold had not yet been met; and (3) bringing of initial property damage claim and later personal injury claim accordingly did not constitute impermissible splitting of cause of action."
The crux of the determination not to allow the Small Claims Court case to affect the bodily injury case lies in the fact that "Plaintiff had no personal injury claim at the time of the first action because her medical expenses did not meet the medical-rehabilitative limit set by Hawai'i's no-fault law," Id, at 919 P.2d 1004.
The ICA's conclusion was to deny to a defendant in that case a dismissal defendant had wanted based on the prior Small Claims Court proceedings:
"We therefore conclude that under the Hawai'i no-fault law, Plaintiff did not have a right to file a personal injury lawsuit until she satisfied and attained the medical-rehabilitative limit of [at that time] $7,600. She had not attained the medical-rehabilitative threshold limit, either at the time she filed her small claims lawsuit for property damages only or obtained the judgment of $1,535.24. In fact, Plaintiff alleged that she attained the threshold limit only when she filed her complaint for personal injury on February 21, 1992."
Id, 919 P.2d at 1007.
Further, at the basis of the rationale was a look at the circumstances to determine, as the Hawai'i Supreme Court stated in Bolte v. Aits, Inc., 60 Haw. 57, 587 P. 2d 810 (1978) whether the policy behind the rule has been violated:
"The rule [against splitting a cause of action] presupposes the fact that the plaintiff is consciously acting inequitably in suing for only part of his claim, knowing that he was unnecessarily bringing vexatious lawsuits against the defendant or careless as to whether he was causing such vexation. The rule against splitting should not be so rigidly applied, however, to produce an injustice and thwart the policy upon which it was founded. Thus, where the plaintiff is ignorant of a possible cause of action which existed at the time of the commencement of a prior, related action, and he is not negligent in his ignorance or his ignorance was caused by the fraud or fault of the defendant, plaintiff's purpose in bringing the subsequent asction will not be to consciously and unreasonably vex or harass the defendant."
Id., at 62-63, 587 P. 2nd at 814 (parentheses added).
Thus, if the no-fault payments recap sheet shows payments made by the no-fault carrier did not reach the applicable tort threshold at the time of filing or adjudication of the Small Claims Court case, the plaintiff having brought the Small Claims Court case for property damage could not yet have brought the bodily injury case unless his or her medicals accrued were at the tort threshold. Thus, other than the recap, a production of any bills in easy-to-read format might be made to show that medicals accrued also did not reach the tort threshold, under pre-1998 law where it was (or should have been) clear that medicals accrued may be used to establish the tort threshold.
A requirement of the claim preclusion rule is that "the claim asserted in the action was or could have been asserted in the prior action[.]" Pedrina v. Chun, 906 F. Supp. 1377, 1399 (D. Hawai'i 1995). The Small Claims Court complaint or judgment could not bar the Uninsured Motorist Arbitration, which was based on the same jurisdictional tort threshold requirement as a bodily injury claim is, because the subject matter of bodily injury could not even be considered in a legal action against the tortfeasor (or against the Uninsured Motorist carrier where it turns out the tortfeasor is uninsured) because of lack of jurisdiction until a date by which the medicals paid or accrued had reached whatever the tort threshold was for the date of injury involved.
| Contingent fee for injury cases = |
| No fee until case is won or settled! |
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